


That's why, darling, it's so incredible (That someone so unforgettable thinks I'm unforgettable, too)

by Mariposa_Moon



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellamy Blake & Raven Reyes Friendship, Canonical Character Death, Control Issues, Declarations Of Love, Depressed Murphy, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hospitalization, I Blame Tumblr, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I don't even like this ship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Murphy is a Little Shit, Murphy-centric, POV John, POV John Murphy, POV Raven, POV Raven Reyes, Raven-centric, Self-Esteem Issues, Their Love Is So, Triggers, True Love, emotional breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 14:25:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8804365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mariposa_Moon/pseuds/Mariposa_Moon
Summary: November 21th is not a good date for John Murphy when so many things went wrong that day. It's not surprising to find him wandering the streets, drunk off his ass.
OR
John disappears and won't pick up the phone and Raven gets worried.





	

_November 21th. Damn it. How could I have forgotten?_ It’s the first thought that comes to mind when she notices the house empty, and with no sign of John. Raven sighs, picks up the phone and absently chews her nails while she waits for someone (hopefully her boyfriend’s voice in a healthy, non-drunk state) to pick up.

 

She shouldn’t be scared, she really shouldn’t.

 

She is though, because John has a tendency to disappear overnight without a call, wandering off to the streets like he’s slowly losing himself. He goes around town without direction or purpose on days like this, on days where he remembers the alcohol in his mother’s voice and the tears in his father’s eyes.

 

Raven is not a clingy girlfriend. She is not one to get obsessed over a forgotten date, a lack of goodbye kiss… She knows how to handle that. And usually, she knows how to handle a missed call, too.

 

_Would you like to leave a voice mess-?_

 

Raven grunts in frustration and places the phone on the table in front of her. John should be back from work by now. He should be here where Raven knows he’s safe and where she can take care of him while this doomed day passes.

 

Instead he’s out there, alone. And she’s here, alone. But where he is lost, she has a goal.

 

She takes the keys from under the pot outside, takes John’s jacket with her because she knows he forgot it and hurriedly puts on her own to protect herself from November’s cold. It’s not December’s cold, where the lights and love around you make the freeze burn softly under your skin, making you fell warm. November is unforgiving, bitter, still grasped by the darkness humanity faces on those type of climates without the fog of Christmas to dissipate it.

 

She only hopes she finds him before it’s past midnight. She doesn’t need him to get in trouble with any of the drunken dudes from that hour, nor does she want him to get so little sleep.

 

++++

 

He puffs, watching the air in front of him. He usually likes it when it is this cold. It makes him numb, invulnerable. Invincible, almost. He pinches his skin and barely notices it.

 

He usually likes it, but it’s nostalgic now and not necessarily in a good way. This day, it reminds him of the hospitals he had to attend when he was a kid. Of how he wished so hard to get one of those blankets he sometimes saw on TV commercials, to feel the unfamiliar warmth they represented rather than the always present cold of the hospital. He particularly liked a red one he saw in a commercial about a sick kid, just like him. The blanket was red, but it had teddy bears all over it, and perhaps if he pretended hard enough, the bears would come alive and play with him and he wouldn’t be so lonely-

 

John tilts his head back, takes two mouthful of whatever alcohol he managed to slip when he was at the bar. It wasn’t stealing if they didn’t catch him, anyways. What matters is that the images of the hospital bed, of black clothes and missed goodbyes… They become fuzzier by the moment. It’s just what he needed, to forget.

 

In the back of his mind, he acknowledges the buzz of his phone on his pocket. He takes it out, the object almost slipping from his loose grip, and stares at the screen.

_Raven-claw is calling…_

 

He hadn’t been the one to name it, that was all her, from when they first met. Back when he was just a short fuse who happened to be friends with Bellamy Blake in high school. He remembers clearly, sitting down at their table and avoiding conversation. That is until he saw her, brown hair almost as dark and deep as her eyes, tanned olive skin, sarcastic tone, and sharp tongue. Raven Reyes was what they called that mystical woman.

 

John hesitates at the memory. His thumb is hovering over the answer button. It would be the responsible thing to do, to let Raven pick him up and stay at home where he knows she won’t have to worry about his well-being. It is what he _should_ do.

 

It’s what Raven would want him to do, because she believes he can be better. Doesn’t she realize he’s just a mess?

 

If he were a man, or really anything other than a rat, he would make his own choice. Answer or ignore, talk or stay quiet, let Raven suffer from up close or from afar. Instead, he lets the phone buzz until it stops, and it stings deeply within him.

 

Choosing not to choose it’s still a choice.

 

John tilts his head back again, drinks the whole damn thing until his throat burns just right and his arms can no longer hold the bottle, letting it shatter on the floor. He blinks twice and puffs air just to watch it dissipate in front of him. He can do that correctly at least, puffing air. It’s one of the things he still has control over.

 

He then notices the phone tightly pressed in his hand, the one thing he has managed not to break so far, and looks at the screen. One missed call…

_Who was Raven-claw again?_

 

++++++++++

 

Raven taps her fingers anxiously on the steering wheel, half paying attention to the road and half looking for a mop of messy blonde hair that she knew so well. But it’s hard. It’s dark and yet there are so many lights, announcements trying to pry her eyes, keep her attention, and distract her from her task. Raven didn’t mind the city, but on occasions like this she couldn’t help but remember her quite home back in her town. By this time everyone was already asleep or counting stars and dreams in silence, or really just enjoy the tranquil way of life they had to offer.

 

She sighs. Instead, she’s out here looking for her possibly very drunk boyfriend, and if she’s honest, she doesn’t mind one bit.

 

It’s not until her initial nerves have calmed down a little (Not entirely, they won’t back to normal until she has John beside her) that she can finally start thinking with logic. Where could he have gone? Where is the place he frequents the most when he gets like this?

 

+++++++++++

 

The tired man trips over by the streets, until he finds a park. It is where he and Raven had their first year anniversary. And he can’t quite remember her face, her eyes, or her lips, or her olive skin. It’s all coming in broken bits and pieces. But he remembers her rough voice and soft kisses and how she held him like they could go through everything together. Maybe he needed some of that right now.

 

Another thing that stands out though, is the hospital right in front of him. He doesn’t quite understand why it is important, or why it makes his eyes water, but he clenches his heart to wait until the pain stops.

 

He wishes he had alcohol with him in that moment. He shouldn’t be feeling anything by now. Yet there are still feelings that shine inside of him. It’s almost laughable: The uncaring John Murphy, turned upside down by depression. He lets out an angry scream.

 

His phone rings for the ninth, maybe tenth time that night. He looks up at the hospital, and back to the phone.

 

He picks it up, too tired to deal with this on his own any longer.

 

“ _Hello?_ ” That’s what he tries to say, but he finds himself too tired (Maybe ashamed?) and too drunk to pronounce correctly, which leaves him sounding like he has a foreign accent.

 

“ _Where are you?_ ” It sounds relieved.

_“Uh…”_ Looking at his surroundings, he realizes he has no idea how the place was called. Not now, anyways, when he could barely read any signs spelling the name of the street. _“Park… Hospital?”_ That doesn’t sound helpful at all, but he hears the girl on the phone made a recognition sound.

 

“ _Gotcha, stay right there._ ”

 

++++++++++++

 

He growls as the sun hits his face. He had never been a morning person, always preferring the night and the dark. _Mornings_ , he always said _, were too early for anything, whatever that might be._ He mostly just laid down until he was awake enough to not feel drowsy while he went on with his routine.

 

Today, however, there was a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach that made him woke up early.

 

John opens his eyes slowly, still a little too sensitive to the light even when he’s been awake for a couple of minutes now. His head is killing him, that’s a more pressing manner. He rubs his eyes tiredly and sits up as slowly and carefully as he can, his right hand immediately searching the body that is always beside him, wrapped in covers like a burrito. Somehow, that’s how Raven always ends up in the mornings. This morning, however, he notices her till in the bed, though still obviously fast asleep. He can’t help but know that this was probably because she was so tired from yesterday’s events. Not like he remembers them clearly, it’s just not really a surprise to find him with a pounding head and a tired Raven by his side on November 22th’s morning.

 

With a sigh, he wonders what good had he done in his past lives to deserve her. Raven had always just sort of… Been there for him. Ever since the beginning.

 

“Mornin’ ” She whispers groggily. He stays quiet for a while.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s okay-”

 

“It’s really not. Not when I’m hurting you like this.” His eyes are tearing up, he notices. He looks to her side, sees her furrowed eyebrows and eyes still lulled by sleep. She hadn’t complained about anything, about him, once. She never had. “I’m sorry.” He says again. It’s the only thing that comes to his mind, the only one worth saying. That, and- “I don’t deserve you.”

 

“Yes, you do.” Before he can argue, Raven put her hand up and sits up, her eyes boring into his with intent. “No, let me finish.” It’s too much for him, so he just nods and follows. “Maybe you don’t deserve me, maybe you do. But you don’t get to act like it’s just you in this relationship, okay? If I’m still here, it’s my choice, and the choice I make and that I’ve always made is to protect you and be right beside you whenever you need me. It’s not a burden, it’s not a curse. Love just works that way; you have to make a series of choices.”

 

“And I love you, so it’s not exactly a surprise that I’d chose you, is it?” She adds quietly. John still seemed a bit shaken up, but at least the tears in his eyes had mostly subsided. He was so tired, and yet, here was his partner, ready for whatever she had to put up with just to get the good parts of him. Truly inspiring.

 

“I love you, too.” He tells her just as quietly as she had. Raven smiles and nods, saying hat she already knows. That she notices it on the way he always manages to calm her down when she explodes, how he makes her think twice before acting, how she makes her feel at home when anywhere else seems foreign and unknown.

 

He grins, the first smile in days, and kisses her softly, partly to say thank you for staying, for choosing him, and partly to reassure her that he’ll choose her, too But she doesn’t need that kind of reassurance, because when she responds with her own passion it’s like he can hear her loud and clear in his mind.

 

She already knows. That’s why she never left.


End file.
